Hundreds of people from the Nigerian community of the central Italian city of Civitanova Marche took to the streets Saturday to protest the slaying of a Nigerian street vendor.
The killing was caught in cellphone video, but no one intervened to stop the slaying of the disabled man.
Police say an Italian man, Filippo Claudio Giuseppe Ferlazzo, 32, has been arrested in connection with the brutal beating of Alika Ogorchukwu, a 39-year-old husband and father.
The footage of the incident shows Ferlazzo using the vendor’s crutch to strike him down. Ogorchukwu had lost his job as a laborer after being hit by a car. He needed to use a crutch to walk after the accident.
The street vendor was unable to get up after Ferlazzo attacked him, the video shows, because the Italian man used his weight to keep Ogorchukwu down.
“The aggressor went after the victim, first hitting him with a crutch,” police investigator Matteo Luconi said at a press conference. “He made him fall to the ground, then he finished, causing the death, striking repeatedly with his bare hands.”
An autopsy has been ordered to determine the cause of Ogorchukwu’s death.
“My condemnation is not only for the [crime], but it is also for the indifference,” Civitanova Marche’s mayor, Fabrizio Ciarapica, told Sky News.
“A father was killed in an atrocious and racist way while passersby took video without stopping the aggressor,” said former Premier Matteo Renzi. He urged people to reflect “on what we are becoming.”
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.